Monday marked the end of our travels outside San Juan. David and I sat down with Jane to flesh out how we could best assist the library. She explained that a high priority was to streamline her website and add an online giving option, so David set up PayPal. I have been working on copy.
One of the chief obstacles to maintaining an effective website for the library has been the reliance on volunteers from outside the country to update content. After talking with Jane, it became clear that the website would be far more useful if Jane and her staff could easily update it here in Nicaragua. To help make this happen, David began the process of setting up MediaWiki and WordPress (free blogging software.) Key considerations for the new site include the ability to easily edit content, maintain content in both English and Spanish, accept donations and facilitate contact with volunteers online, and incorporate new content generated by volunteers and others associated with the project.
David and I are excited to finish the project when we return to Boston. Looking long term, we also researched other options for web-based fundraising and constituent management databases. Kintera may be a good bet for the future, enabling volunteers to be more involved in fundraising as the organization grows.
Monday night we had a great dinner up at Jane?s house. Simmons professor David Gullette was also here with a group from Wentworth Institute of Technology building a bridge (“puente”) near Ostianal. Jerry Hopcroft, an engineering professor, and Gloria Monaghan, a literature professor, were accompanied by two undergraduate engineering students on a field course. Mike Green, a writing professor and media specialist came along to document the project in film and video.
Over a meal of pinchada ? a traditional Nicaraguan dish of meat or chicken slow-cooked in a sweet sauce of raisin, carrots and other mysteries prepared by Roxana, one of the cooks at Jane?s hotel ? we learned the ins and outs of the bridge project. During this trip, their bridge design was field tested and refined. Phase two will continue in January, when construction begins. The bridge will be a modular structure held together with pins to enable easy assemblage and removal if desired. It will actually sit on the riverbed and will be built from cement. The bridge will make life a whole lot easier for people far out in the campo (countryside) who now have to either wade through a river to get where they are going or not go at all. This bridge will support a busload of people, trucks, and livestock. The engineers are hoping that the community can be involved in decorating the bridge with tiles or colorful artwork.